Apple must really feel the competition heating up, because Phil Schiller just can't say enough about Android these days. In an interview with Reuters on Wednesday, Schiller -- Apple's senior vice president of worldwide marketing -- said that most Android users are running old software because updates are slow to roll out.

"With their own data, only 16 percent of Android users are on year-old version of the operating system," Schiller said. "Over 50 percent are still on software that is two years old. A really big difference."

It's important to note that each Android OS update needs to be tested for several different hardware makers to make sure it's right for each one.

Further, Schiller trash talked the new Samsung Galaxy S IV, saying that it will be shipped with a year-old operating system because Android has a fragmentation issue.

"And that extends to the news we are hearing this week that the Samsung Galaxy S4 is being rumored to ship with an OS that is nearly a year old," Schiller said. "Customers will have to wait to get an update."

Android version install base as of March 4, 2013 [Image Source: Android.com]

"At Apple we know that it's not just enough to have products pumped out in large numbers," Schiller said. "You have to love and use them. There is a lot of data showing a big disparity there."

Schiller was bad-mouthing Android earlier this week in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, where he said that iPhone users are more satisfied with their smartphone experience than Android users and that Androids are the kinds of phones given as free replacements to feature phones. He added that Android phones make you "sign up for nine accounts" out of the box because it isn't as seamless of an experience as iOS -- where Apple is responsible for both hardware and software.

Apple's Phil Schiller posing with an iPad mini

It's interesting that Apple is starting to dig into Samsung and Android right around the release of the Samsung Galaxy S IV, which is due to make its first appearance today at the 7 p.m. ET launch event at Radio City Music Hall in Manhattan. The Samsung Galaxy S III made a big splash in the smartphone world, and the greater specs of the Galaxy S IV should mean increased popularity of the line.

quote: Taking all the hardware manufacturers using Android, adding them together and comparing them to one companies sales is nonsense in any market. Acer, Amazon, Asus, HTC, Samsung, Sony, LG, Toshiba, Viewsonic, Motorola, Huawei, Lenovo, ZTE, Nook, etc... all added up, from every price point, and compared to one company... Apple. Fair fight? The argument doesn't even make sense...

Doesn't Samsung alone have ~33% worldwide market share or something?

Also: I don't know why everybody says Apple's hardware is obsolete >.< I'm an Android gone WP8 user, and the iPhone still has good hardware.

The A6 core outperformed everything pre 2013, and only now is it starting to get outdone (ghz war now is as stupid as it was with Pentium 4 vs AMD Thunderbird. 3Ghz is not uniformly faster than 1.6ghz). Same thing goes for their 1.3ghz core compared to 1.7ghz+ A9's and Krait. The A6 was still better in most things, although that's no longer the case. The new Snapdragon 600/800 should beat it, and Samsung's A15 cores will beat it (albeit at a higher power draw).

The GPU they put in their phones is still the best, although this is more Imagination's win than Apple's. LTE was late, but since it has LTE, it has LTE and it doesn't really get any better than that right now.

Personally, I can't stand a 4" screen, but the thing is certainly colorful (my brother has one). Just look at the charts on Anandtech, it does well for itself. And yeah it isn't 720p, but because of the smaller screen you still have a higher ppi than most 720p screens since Androids are so big. 1080p is a different matter of course, and Apple probably needs to boost to something like 900p to compete. (At minimum). And when you talk about screen size, that's surely a matter of opinion. 4.3" - 4.7" is perfect for me, anything bigger or smaller is just meh.

13MP camera still remains to be seen how good it will be. The front facing should be better though. If this is a generic 13MP camera though, I am fairly certain that the Lumia 920 and 928, and possibly the HTC One will outperform it though. It's probably better than the iPhone 5's camera though.

Lots of analysis haha... point being that Apple's hardware is certainly not obsolete. It's usually top of the line when it comes out(minus opinionated things like the screen size). And if other companies like Qualcomm couldn't beat Apple's 2012 core with their 2013 CPU, something would be wrong anyways.

"So, I think the same thing of the music industry. They can't say that they're losing money, you know what I'm saying. They just probably don't have the same surplus that they had." -- Wu-Tang Clan founder RZA